


my heart is human, my blood is boiling, my brain I.B.M.

by readergirl1013



Series: just kiss off into the air [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Child Death, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Parent-Child Relationship, Robot Feels, Robots, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-30 01:53:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19032331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readergirl1013/pseuds/readergirl1013
Summary: Grace was a robot. She was not able to feel as humans did. She should not be able to feel. She was wires and circuit boards and welded metal covered by a simulacrum of flesh.She had often wondered why the children had never seen her as a monster. The few television shows and films with robots in them that they had watched during Saturday’s scheduled half an hour for fun and games suggested that too-intelligent robots were regarded as something to fear; as monsters.But the children loved her. And Grace could not help but feel so much for them back.She didn’t know what else she could do when surrounded by seven wonderful children who looked to her for comfort and love except learning how to feel. It wasn’t a difficult task.She accepted her feelings - her love - for the children as simply as she had everything in her short years activated. It was a fact.





	my heart is human, my blood is boiling, my brain I.B.M.

**Author's Note:**

> Following the initial fic about Vanya, as she committed suicide, each sequel will focus on a different character through the years attempting to cope with the fact that their sister killed herself at thirteen. 
> 
> WARNING: This fic is from Grace's POV the following day when she finds Vanya's body and hers and the reactions of the others to her suicide. 
> 
> Please, do not read this if this is triggering for you!

Grace was a robot. She was not able to feel as humans did. She should not be able to _feel._  She was wires and circuit boards and welded metal covered by a simulacrum of flesh.

She had often wondered why the children had never seen her as a monster. The few television shows and films with robots in them that they had watched during Saturday’s scheduled half an hour for fun and games suggested that too-intelligent robots were regarded as something to fear; as monsters.

But the children loved her. And Grace could not help but feel so much for them back.

She didn’t know what else she could do when surrounded by seven wonderful children who looked to her for comfort and love except learning how to feel. It wasn’t a difficult task.

She accepted her feelings - her love - for the children as simply as she had everything in her short years activated. It was a fact. It even made sense that she was able to develop feelings of love for her children because she had been made to do so.

After all, hadn’t Mr. Hargreeves created her to take care of the children? To take care of a child was to love them unconditionally, without question.

She loved Luther for his hard-headedness and over-dedication as much as for his gentle soul and love of building new and wonderful things stronger than before, including his siblings.

She loved Diego for his temper and his competitive nature as much as she did for his kindness and need to take care of the others, the way he hovered over them to try and protect them on bad days and after missions.

She loved Allison for her selfish words and bossiness as much as she did for her nurturing and tender heart and her desire to have her siblings all get along, how she played peacekeeper and gentled the most headstrong of her siblings.

She loved Klaus for his dark outlook and darker words and the fear he drowned in as much as she did for his bright smiles and avant-garde outfits and his hope to make the others smile, he would do the most ridiculous things to see a spark of happiness in their eyes, even if it led to him being hurt.

She loved Five for his arrogance and his stubborn certainty as much as she did for how he took care of his siblings and used his bright mind to help them with their schoolwork, how he caringly used his intelligence to draw attention to himself and off of the others when one of them struggled to keep up with their father’s demands.

She loved Ben for his withdrawn and taciturn nature and the way he isolated himself as much as for how he was so sweet and always willing to help for his siblings, how after a bad mission even though he might want nothing more than to disappear for a while he would stay with a sibling who needed someone to listen or a hand to hold.

She loved Vanya as much for her shyness, timidness, nervousness, and fear of rejection as she did for how she played the most beautiful music that said more than any words and her desire to be there, no matter what, at every turn for her siblings; how she would always, always make sure to help them train or practice or simply to help them get out of their heads.

Yes, Grace could easily understand the love she felt for her children. Who could not love them, after all, as wonderful as they were?

She was built to love them.

And so, if she was built to love them, then she was built to fear for them. She was afraid every time they went on a mission, every time she heard crying in the night, every time one of them was hurt.

A mother was meant to love unconditionally and fear the way the world would treat her children. How it might damage the gentleness, the kindness. How it might extinguish their desires and hopes. That it would dampen their care and help for others.

But that fear was so, so different from what she was feeling now.

Because Vanya wouldn’t wake up.

She had never thought to fear that something might take away one of her children. Especially not quiet Vanya who was always, always there.

Grace had gone into Vanya’s room, worried when she hadn’t appeared for breakfast. Her smallest daughter had seemed under the weather these past weeks, so much so that Grace had taken to stopping her to use the temperature sensors in her hand to check for signs of illness.

(The other children had noticed, too. She had heard Allison saying something to Luther, and Klaus and Ben murmuring worriedly to one another, and Five and Diego watching their sister carefully.

Mr. Hargreeves had not seemed to notice, but then for all Mr. Hargreeves was a great man, Grace knew he did not ever really notice the children.)

She’d seen Vanya lying on her bed, looking pale and sickly, clothed in street clothes she knew belonged to the other children with her violin clutched to her like a toy. Mr. Hargreeves would be angry to see the instrument treated like that. Grace would have to make sure he didn’t so Vanya would not be punished while she was ill.

She placed her hand on Vanya’s shoulder, calling gently, “Vanya, time to wake up.”

Vanya didn’t move. The temperature sensors in Grace’s hand registered that her body temperature was far too low. She frowned. Vanya must have been far iller than she’d suspected.

“Vanya?” she called again.

Nothing, not even the slightest movement. Humans moved all the time, even when they did not intend to. Their eyes twitched, their chests rose and fell, their blood pumped beneath their skin.

Vanya was doing none of that.

Fear started to build within Grace’s circuits. “Vanya!” she called more loudly, trying to shake her.

She was stiff. Her skin and muscles seemed unmoving, as though she too were built of metal.

Grace shook her head. No, no, no. Humans were not supposed to be stiff. “Vanya!” she cried, still trying to gently shake Vanya awake. She needed to wake up if she were to take medicine and feel better. “Vanya, wake up! Wake up! WAKE UP!”

She didn’t realize she was raising her voice louder and louder with each cry. She didn’t know she sounded more and more panicked as she began to beg and plead. “VANYA! VANYA, PLEASE! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!! WAKE UP!!!”

She didn’t realize the other children had come running at the sounds of her cries, so focused on waking her smallest daughter up. Not until the sound of a small voice said, “Mom?”

It was the fear in the voice that made her look up from Vanya. Her other six children were crowding into the small room. It was Allison who had spoken.

“What’s wrong with Vanya? Is she okay?” Klaus sounded so very small and young.

Grace didn’t know how to answer. Her logic processing had already told her what had happened. Her maternal need to protect the children had her still trying to shake Vanya awake.

“Why are there bottles on the floor?” Luther asked, confusedly picking up a bottle of Mr. Hargreeves best scotch in one hand and the pill bottle they kept the morphine in with the other.

“No,” Five whispered. He was shaking his head as he stared at his too-still sister. “No, no, no!”

He teleported onto the bed and started violently shaking Vanya. “No! NO! YOU CAN’T! YOU CAN’T! WAKE UP, PLEASE, NO!!”

Klaus stumbled back, face pale and hands raising to cover his ears. He hit the wall and sank down it, sobbing hysterically.

Of course, her logic processing centers told her, her most naturally intelligent child and the child who saw death everywhere would realize first.

She wished she could comfort them, to shield them and protect them from this, but she didn’t know how. She wished she could have stopped this so she’d never had any need to shield and protect them from this.

It was Ben who realized next and then Allison. Ben had found the piece of paper that Grace had seen beside Vanya and ignored, more concerned with waking her.

He unfolded it with shaking hands, realization already slowly dawning and then striking fully as he read what was written on it. He fled the room, tears running down his cheeks, and the paper fluttering down to the ground behind him. Part of Grace wanted to run after him, but she knew he preferred solitude when dealing with strong emotions. She knew he wouldn’t go far either.

“I heard a rumor Vanya woke up,” Allison said desperately, stumbling forward to clutch at the sheets near Vanya’s hand. She seemed unable to bring herself to grab it as she came to understand what had happened. “I heard a rumor Vanya was okay!”

Five was still begging her to wake up while shaking Vanya, but the strength of each one was waning and for the first time since he’d broken his arm when he was seven, Grace saw tears falling from his eyes. He was crying brokenly and still begging for her to wake up even as he curled into a miserable ball on her bed, hands holding himself in a mockery of a hug rather than shaking his sister.

Diego let out a pained sound as he, too, realized. He was shaking his head and saying, “No, no, no,” over and over. He slid down a wall on the opposite side of the door from Klaus, repeating ‘No’ as though it was all he could say. Tears fell down his cheeks

Luther bent down to pick up the note Ben had dropped. He seemed to be in denial, refusing to acknowledge something was wrong. He stared at the note, and then at his sister on her bed, and then at his other siblings who were crying and throwing fits. “I- Mom, I don’t understand?”

Grace had to reply, even if all she wanted to do was cry like the children were. But she was not able to cry and she was made to answer reasonable questions. “Don’t understand what, dear?”

Her vocal processors must have had something wrong with them. Her voice sounded off. Too high and tight by far.

“What’s wrong with Vanya? And what did she mean? She wrote, ‘ _I’m sorry. Goodbye._ ’ Why would she write that?” Luther stumbled over his words, obviously desperate not to acknowledge what was so obvious to the others.

His words only caused the other children to break down more. Klaus began rocking back and forth, banging his head against the wall over and over. Allison’s rumors got louder as she screamed for her sister to wake up, demanding that she be okay. Five’s sobs got louder and he fell forward, curling his head down onto Vanya’s shoulder. Diego’s denials came to a halt as anger set in and he started punching the wall until Grace could see the blood on his knuckles. Out in the hallway, obviously not having gone far, Ben let out a wail of pure anguish.

Grace didn’t know what to say. Her stored memory bank contained no way to gently tell her largest son what had happened. Her logic processors failed to generate any sort of answer.

Despite her lack of words, she could still see that the truth was slowly dawning on Luther. He started to shake his head even as his eyes darted between the empty bottles of pills and alcohol, his too-still sister, his other sobbing and screaming siblings, and the note in his hands.

Mr. Hargreeves appeared in the doorway. “What is going on here?” he demanded sharply. “You were supposed to have been at training twelve point two minutes ago. Not carrying on like a bunch of animals in Number Seven’s room!”

Most of the children paid him no mind, for once, so consumed by their grief. Grace didn’t know how to tell Mr. Hargreeves what had occurred either. She tried, beginning, “Sir-”

Allison’s voice cut her off as she screamed out, “I heard a rumor Vanya was alive!”

It was a desperate, fervent, final attempt. Everyone seemed to hold their breaths in the hope that it would work.

Nothing happened.

The children all fell completely to pieces. Allison had thrown herself over top of Vanya, repeating the rumor over and over as though the results would change if she said it enough. Five was sobbing, completely hysterical. Klaus’s banging head was harder and louder as he began to beg the world that this wasn’t real. Diego’s hands were bloody and there were holes in Vanya’s walls. Ben was wailing desperately in the hallway, separate enough to suit his preference for solitude but still there with them. Luther had sunk to his knees, tears rolling silently down his cheeks as he, too, finally understood what had happened.

Grace looked silently up at Mr. Hargreeves, waiting for the realization that his daughter was gone to hit him. He was her father, and unlike her he was human. He could feel with more than wires and circuits in a pale mockery of the human depth of emotion.

Anger flashed across his face as he looked over at Vanya. Grace thought that perhaps, like Diego, he would express his grief through fury. She would need to shield the children a bit more than usual, beyond the bounds of her code, to make sure they would be okay.

He opened his mouth. “So the useless little thing killed herself, then? Well, at least she won’t be wasting my resources and time any longer,” he said, sounding as though he truly didn’t care. He looked at Vanya- at Vanya’s body - with disdain. “Why are the rest of you wasting your training time on this useless endeavor? She’s dead, crying about it doesn’t do anything. Get up and get changed for training now. I expect you ready and in the training room in five minutes.”

He turned and left without even glancing at his other children.

If he had he would have seen the betrayal and hatred drawing itself across all of their faces. Even Luther, so dedicated to his father, was staring after the man with pure betrayal and heartbreak at those callous words. (Even herself, programmed to hold him in the greatest esteem.)

(Grace longed to be able to _weep_ for her lost little girl; for her sweet, gentle daughter. But the man who could, her daughter's _father_ , did not even care she was gone. Her dear Vanya was gone. _Grace's daughter was gone._ )

Grace was a robot. She was not able to feel as humans did. She should not be able to _feel._  She was wires and circuit boards and welded metal covered by a simulacrum of flesh.

She had often wondered why the children had never seen her as a monster. The few television shows and films with robots in them that they had watched during Saturday’s scheduled half an hour for fun and games suggested that too-intelligent robots were regarded as something to fear; as monsters.

But that day she saw that it was Mr. Hargreeves (for all that he might be a great man) who was the monster.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The sequel will be posted when complete.


End file.
